


Something Stranger Yet

by neednot



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016), The X-Files
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe, Cross-Posted on Tumblr, Crossover, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-21
Updated: 2016-11-21
Packaged: 2018-08-10 01:51:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,764
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7825531
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neednot/pseuds/neednot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>There is something stranger yet,</i>
  <br/>
  <i>That wants to take you, don't forget </i>
</p><p>When Mulder and Scully are called to Hawkins, Indiana to investigate the disappearance of Barbara Holland, they're pulled into a web more tangled than either could ever imagine.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Forgetting of Barbara Holland

_There is something stranger yet_  
_that wants to take you, don’t forget._  
_Yes, there is something stranger still,_  
_and if it can, it could and it would and it will._

—Welcome to Night Vale

* * *

 

**Tuesday, November 8, 1983. 11:36 pm.**

Barbara Holland is not where she wants to be.

Where she wants to be is curled up at home in bed, reading _Seventeen,_ listening in on her mother’s phone conversations with her boyfriend of the week, or tying up the line calling Nancy and making stupid jokes just to hear that laugh again.

Where she is is sitting in Steve Harrington’s backyard, toes in his heated pool, slowly pruning while her best friend has sex upstairs.

She knew this was a bad idea.

She shouldn’t have driven Nancy here. Shouldn’t have covered for Nancy about the rally for Will. Shouldn’t have, shouldn’t have, shouldn’t have.Her life is made up of shouldn’t haves. Shouldn’t have bummed a cigarette that one time from Rachel Harris, shouldn’t have stolen $20 from her mom’s purse.

Shouldn’t have a crush on her best friend, and yet here she is, sitting with her toes in a pool and wishing it was her upstairs instead of stupid Steve.

Stupid, stupid Steve. Stupid Barbara, for thinking Nancy could give her a chance.

She kicks at the water and it splashes on her rolled up jeans, and she wishes for the millionth time she were home in her bed.

Why did she even agree to drive Nancy here? She knew this would happen, knew Nancy would run off with Steve and leave her hurt and alone. Ever since Steve entered the picture Nancy’s been more and more distant, declining sleepovers and trips to the cinema just to sneak off with her fake boyfriend.

Stupid Nancy. Stupid Barbara. Stupid Steve.

A sharp pain in her hand brings her back to reality. She grits her teeth and clutches the bandage tighter and watches as a drop of blood spills into the pool.

And then the lights flicker.

She doesn’t know what to do–okay the power surges sometimes around Hawkins, but never like this—so she clenches her jaw and closes her eyes like it’ll make everything go away.

But her hand still hurts and she’s still sitting with her thumb bandaged and her toes in stupid Steve’s pool and Nancy is still upstairs with him.

And then there’s a roar.

And she turns—

And she screams as it reaches out and grabs her.

And as she’s kicking and screaming and trapped in a world that is not her world, she wishes she were still sitting with her finger bandaged and her toes in stupid Steve’s pool.

From his spot behind the trees, Jonathan Byers watches her disappear.

* * *

 

**Wednesday, November 9, 1983. 12:34 pm.**

Nancy Wheeler hasn’t seen her best friend all day, and she’s the only one who’s worrying. Even Barb’s mother doesn’t seem concerned.

Not like Mrs. Holland is ever concerned about what happens to her daughter, Nancy knows. God knows how many nights Barb’s spent at her place and her mother didn’t even know she was gone. Barb’s had a place at the Wheeler’s table ever since middle school, eating scrambled eggs on weekends and kicking Mike under the table when he makes faces at Nancy.

Her mother notices when she’s gone for two seconds. Nancy can’t imagine what Barb’s life is like.

But she feels awful about what happened last night–not with Steve, but with Barb. Awful for ditching her, making her drive her there, awful…

And now she’s missing.

She can’t believe Mrs. Holland even believed her stupid lie about the library, but it was the only one she could think of.

Barb is gone and Nancy can’t help but feel that it’s her fault.

So she picks up the phone again. She knows she can’t call the police, they’re too busy looking for Will, and it’s not like they’re super competent to begin with, anyway.

“Hi hello, can you put me through to the FBI?”

If she’s going to do this, she’s going to do it right.

* * *

 

**Wednesday, November 9, 1983. Washington, D.C. 8:34 am**

Dana Scully is late. Late because Queequeg wanted to be let out and then her car wouldn’t start and then traffic held her up and now, here she is, red hair askew and glasses slipping down her nose and the elevator down to the basement feels like it’s taking forever.

And then the doors open and she runs right into Fox Mulder.

"Mulder, I—”

“Don’t bother getting out of the elevator, Scully,” he says, telltale grin lighting up his face and she knows what that means.

“Where are we going?”

 

**Wednesday, November 9, 1983. Hawkins, Indiana. 2:21 pm.**

“Mulder, where are we going?”

Two hours in the car–he insisted they drive–and god knows how many miles later, and her hair is still askew and her glasses are still falling down her nose and he hasn’t even stopped for coffee.

“Mulder if you don’t tell me where we’re going, the next stoplight we hit I’m going to open the door and hitchhike back to the Bureau.”

“Have a little faith, Scully,” he says, looking over and grinning at her before fishing a bag of sunflower seeds out of the glove compartment.

He tosses her a file–she doesn’t even know where he pulled it from–and the contents land on her lap, almost spilling everywhere.

“Why are we investigating the Department of Energy?” She asks, raising an eyebrow quizzically in what Mulder’s come to know is her trademark way.

“Not the Department of Energy, Scully,” he says, and taps energetically on the folder. “Read the file.”

She opens it.

“Mulder?”

“Mm?”

“Why are we driving to Hawkins, Indiana?”

“Because,” he says. “Of the Hawkins National Laboratory and a missing girl named Barbara Holland.”

 

Hawkins is a small town, smaller than any they’ve been to so far–and Dana Scully has seen her fair share of small towns. One stoplight, a drugstore, a hardware store, and a small restaurant called Benny’s Burgers.

“We should eat there, I’m starving,” Mulder says, pointing at it.

Scully frowns. “It’s closed.”

“No, it isn’t.”

“Yes, Mulder, it is,” Scully says stubbornly.

Mulder sighs and parks the car in front of a worn-down police station, unlocks his side of the car and steps out. On her side, Scully clips her badge to her belt and fixes her hair in the side mirror reflection.

A man is outside, smoking a cigarette, hat pulled low over his face. He looks for all the world like a stereotypical small-town sheriff.

Scully falls into step beside Mulder, gets ready to pull their badges out like routine. But then the man looks up at them, takes in their clothes, and rolls his eyes.

“Y’all must be here about Will Byers.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I'm a huge fan of both The X-Files and Stranger Things, so I came up with this idea, born on Twitter
>
>> To make up for the fact no one in Stranger Things cares about Barb I'm gonna write fic.
>> 
>> — Nita Tyndall (@NitaTyndall) [August 21, 2016](https://twitter.com/NitaTyndall/status/767159320517771265)  
> 
> 
> I'm excited to write this fic! Comments and kudos always welcome, and the story will update **every Saturday**


	2. A Bit Different

**Wednesday, November 9, 1983. 3:07 pm.**

Scully is the first to respond.

“Who’s Will Byers?” she asks, brow furrowed. “We’re here about a missing girl—Barbara Holland? Some girl named Nancy called it in, do you know where she is?”

The man frowns. “Nancy Wheeler?”

“I think so.”

“She’s up at the high school with all the other kids. Who’d you folks say you are, anyway?”

“We didn’t,” Scully says, at the same time Mulder says, “Fox Mulder, FBI.” He steps forward and flashes his badge. “And this is my partner, Agent Dana Scully.”

Scully gives the man a cursory nod. He looks her up and down before throwing down his cigarette and grinding it under the heel of his shoe. He’s a tall man, taller than Mulder and heavier, and as she steps closer she can smell the stale cigarette smoke still lingering on him.

“You are?” she asks when he doesn’t offer up his name.  
“Chief Jim Hopper,” he says, and shakes her hand. His hands are rough, calloused, his voice low. “I’m investigating the disappearance of Will Byers. And up until you all showed up, I didn’t know Barbara Holland was missing.”

“No one told you?”

“We’ve had our hands full with Byers’ disappearance and his… family,” Hopper says dismissively.

“Think the two are connected?” Mulder asks.

“At the moment? No. Teenage girl goes missing around here, it’s usually because she’s run off with a boy.” He frowns. “Though it _is_ Barbara Holland we’re talking about…”

“No boyfriend?” Scully asks, raising her eyebrow again.

“It’s not my place to speculate, but Barbara’s always been a bit… different,” Hopper says again, in the same tone he mentioned Will Byers’ family. Scully makes a mental note to ask around about Barbara.

“Well, if that’s the case, we’ll leave you to your investigation,” Scully says, and turns to get back in the car.

Mulder jerks his thumb towards the diner. “Know if that place is open?”

Hopper squints. After a minute, he shrugs. “Think Benny’s taking a holiday,” he says, and before Mulder can respond, turns to go.

 

In the motel room, Scully’s barely set her suitcase down before Mulder turns to her, his eyes shining.

“They’re hiding something, Scully,” he says, spreading all the files out.

“I’d hope so, or else we came out here when we could’ve left this to the sheriff,” she says dryly, laying down on the bed.

“Did you see his face when I asked about the diner? There’s definitely something going on here,” Mulder says.

“Mulder, before you get caught up in conspiracy theories can I remind you we still have a missing girl?”

Mulder shrugs. “She probably ran off with a boyfriend.”

“Her best friend called _us_ , Mulder. She wouldn’t have done that if the girl had just run off with a boyfriend.”

“Okay then,” he says. “Why don’t you go talk to the best friend, and I’m going to do all I can to find out more about this Will Byers.”

“I thought they weren’t connected.” She folds her arms across her chest in that way he’s becoming used to.

He stares across the room at his small partner. They’ve only been working together a few months but in that short amount of time he’s learned what makes her tick—science. Logic. Reason. Leave the crazy stuff to him.

And this stuff with Will Byers? He can’t tell why, but he feels like it’s got crazy written all over it.

* * *

 

Nancy Wheeler stands outside the bus stop, hands shaking as she tries to light a cigarette she bummed off Alice Hayes.

Barbara is missing. Jonathan took photos of her and Steve messed up his camera and all of this is wrong, so wrong.

She coughs and decides to stub out the cigarette, takes her hair out of her ponytail and takes her fingers through before tying it back again.

If Barb were here she’d laugh and tell Nancy she looked like she had sex hair before smoothing and expertly retying her ponytail.

But Barb isn’t here.

Nancy shifts from side to side, chews on her bottom lip. Normally Barb drives her home, but Barb isn’t here, so on the bus she goes.

A car pulls up in front of the stop, a nondescript gray car, and Nancy shades her eyes to look at it.

A woman steps out of the car, smaller than Nancy, with a shock of red hair (darker than Barb’s, Nancy notices), with an air of efficiency around her.

“Nancy Wheeler?” She calls.

Nancy’s first instinct is to run. With what happened to Will, and now Barb…

The woman must sense Nancy’s fear because she stops right by the front wheel and pulls a badge out of her pocket. “I’m Special Agent Dana Scully, FBI,” the woman says, and Nancy breathes a sigh of relief.

“Can you come with me please?”

And then it turns sour.

* * *

 

Mulder finds himself in Hawkins’ small library, poring over any information he can find on the Department of Energy.

Something creaks near him, and he hears the low tones of the Sheriff from this morning.  
He turns off the microfiche viewer and creeps closer, careful not to be heard.

Where has he heard the name Martin Brenner before?

* * *

 

**Wednesday, November 9, 9:32 pm**

It’s dark by the time Nancy’s finished telling Dana everything, and her coffee mug is drained. Dana drove by her house so Nancy could tell her mother she’d be out late—just studying, an essay due, you know how it is—before Dana drove her to a diner a little over a half hour away, in a bigger town called Wendview.

Nancy tells her everything over coffee, about her friendship with Barb and Barb’s mother’s carelessness and her deadbeat dad and nights spent at Nancy’s, and even, about Barb driving her to Steve’s the night before.

“I should’ve gone home with her,” Nancy mutters. “If I had…”

“You can’t blame yourself for these types of things,” Dana says sympathetically.

“But she’s gone because I went upstairs with—with Steve,” Nancy says, and the tips of her ears turn red. “And then there’s Jonathan…”

“Who’s Jonathan?”

Nancy’s face turns like she tasted something sour. “Nobody,” she says, too quickly.

But Scully doesn’t press the issue. She’s worked with girls like Nancy before, she knows she’ll tell her when she’s ready.  
Nancy stares down at the dregs in her mug, wrapping her hands around the ceramic. Scully tries to think of something to say.

How much this girl seems like her, a girl in a houseful of siblings with the weight of everyone else’s expectations on her.

Maybe that’s why she isn’t judging her for Steve. Lord knows Scully did the same thing, at her age.

The pager in her pocket beeps, and Nancy jumps. Scully pulls it out and frowns, then immediately rushes to her feet and signals for the waitress.

“We have to go,” she says to the girl sitting across from her. “My partner just said they found Will Byers.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, thank you all for the lovely comments and kudos! I'm so excited to continue this fic; suggestions and comments are always appreciated, and you can contact me on Twitter @NitaTyndall or on tumblr at need-not.tumblr.com/ask
> 
> Thanks again!


	3. Missing Girls and Missing Boys

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Something in his face changes. Drops. Breaks, Scully thinks.  
> “They just found Will,” he says, and then his voice cracks and his sister is gathering him into her arms as he cries.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the lateness on this chapter! I'm so grateful for all the feedback and kudos on this fic, and I hope y'all enjoy! <3

**Wednesday, November 9, 1983. 11:42 p.m.**

The first thing Mulder sees when he arrives at the reservoir is the shadow of four figures on bikes, caught in the headlights.

Well. Three figures on bikes. One standing.

He can hear them yelling from here.

A memory, suddenly. Riding his bike around Martha’s Vineyard in the summer, Samantha running behind, his mother’s calls to _“slow down and play with your sister”_.

He doesn’t want to think about Samantha right now. About missing girls and missing boys and the body they’re pulling out of the reservoir. He can see it from here. Can see the shadow of the sheriff, the kids on bikes, everyone lit by the red flashing lights of the fire truck.

He hopes it isn’t the girl. Barbara. If it’s Barbara, Skinner will call and make them pack up, declare it a drowning and call it a night.

And Mulder knows there’s something more going on here. Between what he overhead today at the library and the way the sheriff’s acting.

And now these kids on bikes—not inherently suspicious, Mulder knows. But he also knows kids pay more attention to anything else around, especially if their friend is missing.

Their friend.

He hears swearing coming from one of the kids and watches as one of them tears off down the road on his bike, leaving the others behind.

Shit. The body they pulled from the river isn’t Barbara.

It’s the kid. Will Byers.

Without thinking, Mulder tears off after the kid. Maybe he knows something—and if he’s that close to Will, maybe he knows more than anyone thinks he will.

* * *

 

The lights are flashing when Scully and Nancy pull up, giving an eerie red glow to the surrounding trees, lighting them up like they’re on fire.

And then the brakes squeal and Nancy screams as a figure is lit by their headlights.

“Mike?!” Nancy yells, and she’s out of the car before Scully has even had time to process what’s happening.  
“Don’t touch the kid!”

“Mulder?!” Scully yells, and then the four of them are standing, illuminated by two pairs of headlights.

“Scully?!”

“Nancy?” the boy says, and Scully gets a good look at him. He’s about 12, maybe, with sharp cheekbones and dark eyes she knows will break some girl’s heart someday.

Mulder looks between the two. “Wait. You know this kid?”

“He’s my brother,” Nancy says, and then turns to Mike. “What’re you doing out here?”

Something in his face changes. Drops. Breaks, Scully thinks.

“They just found Will,” he says, and then his voice cracks and his sister is gathering him into her arms as he cries.

* * *

 

They take the Wheeler children back to the motel, at Mike’s staunch refusal to go home. Scully drives Mike and Mulder drives Nancy. She stares out the window the entire time. Mike fidgets with the radio. Scully can’t bring herself to tell him to stop. The kid’s just lost his best friend.

Mulder looks over at Nancy on the drive back.

“So how old are you?” he asks.

“Seventeen,” she replies coolly.

Seventeen. An age his sister never got to see. 

“Why?” she asks. She bites her cuticles.

Samantha did the same thing. Mulder has vivid memories of their mother painting Samantha’s nails on Saturdays with bad-tasting polish so she wouldn’t try to do the same thing.

“It’s my job to know,” he says.

“FBI?”

“Yes.”

She folds her arms over her chest. “You’re going to find Barb, right?”

Truth be told, finding the missing girl has been far from his mind. There are bigger things at stake in Hawkins. Nancy must sense that because she narrows her eyes. “You _are_ going to find Barb?”

“Of course,” he says. Then he looks over at her. “Hey. What do you know about the kid they found? Will Byers? His family?”

At the mention of the boy’s family the tips of Nancy’s ears turn red.

“They’re just… I dunno. Dad split town awhile ago, I think? Will’s nice, but you should ask Mike about him—they’re friends. I can tell you Will’s at our house every weekend playing Dungeons & Dragons and eating pepperoni pizza, but that’s about it.”

“And what about Barb?” he asks.

“Barb’s my best friend,” she says, and looks down at her hands. “And she’s been missing for two days and it feels like no one cares. I mean, yeah. I love Will, and it sucks that he’s missing, but I just… I want them both to be okay, you know?”

Mulder nods. “Yeah. I know.”

* * *

 

**Thursday, November 10. 12:27 a.m.**

It begins raining by the time they pull up to the motel. Scully and Mulder and Nancy run to the safety of the awning, but Mike takes his time.

“Think his bike will be okay in the trunk?” Scully asks, and Mulder nods.

“Mike, come on!” Nancy yells, and he finally trudges up to the motel. Mulder opens the door to his room and ushers the four of them in.

“Call your parents,” Scully says, sliding the motel phone towards Nancy. “Tell them you’re with us, okay? We’ll pay for a room if we have to.”

“Not like they’re going to care,” Mike mutters, and Nancy shoots him a look.

Mike sits on the bed, glum look on his face. Then, without warning, he stands up and kicks a dresser.

“Mike!”

“It’s fine,” Mulder says, and sits back down on the bed. “So Nancy was telling me they found your friend?”

“It’s not him,” Mike says, with such conviction Mulder’s eyes widen.

“What makes you say that?”

“Because it’s _not_.”

“Mike,” Nancy says gently.

“No—you’re not listening!” Mike says, and begins pacing around the room—much like Mulder, Scully thinks, when he’s insistent on something. “That’s _not_ Will! El said she’d find him and she doesn’t lie! Friends don’t lie!”

“Wait—” Scully says, at the same time Nancy says “Who’s El?”

Mike’s face pales, and he sits on the bed, his fists clenched. Minutes pass. Then, Mulder goes and sits next to him. Scully stands by the door, arms folded. Nancy leans on the desk.

“Who’s El?” Mulder asks gently.

“She’s just—she’s a friend, okay?”

“Mike you don’t have any friends who are girls,” Nancy says, and Mike sticks his tongue out at her. 

“Seriously, who’s El?” Mulder asks, nudging Mike with his shoulder.

“You can tell us,” Scully says gently. Mike looks up at her, appraising, eyes narrowed.

“We’re the good guys,” Mulder says, making eye contact with Scully. She rolls her eyes.

The good guys. Yeah. More like the weird guys getting the cases no one wants. And they still haven’t made any headway finding Barbara.

“El’s this girl,” he says. “We… we found her.”

“You _found_ her?” Nancy says, but Mulder holds up his hand.

“In the woods. My friends and I. We were… we were looking for Will. And we found her instead. In the woods. She doesn’t speak much but she said her name is Eleven. And she… she slept in our basement. She said she knows how to find Will. She’s got like, powers or something.”

“Powers?” Mulder asks.

Scully hears the excitement in his voice.

“Mulder…”

“Hang on, Scully,” Mulder says. She narrows her eyes at him.

“You don’t believe this,” she says, at the same time Nancy says, “Wait, she’s been sleeping in our _basement_?!”

“Only for a couple nights!”

“Why didn’t you tell mom?!”

“Hang on, hang on!” Mulder says, standing up and holding out his hands. He looks down at Mike.

“Where is El?”

“Mulder…”

“I… I don’t know. She’s with my friends. I kind of left them—shit,” he swears. “I just left them back… back there.”

“Well then, let’s go get them,” Mulder says, standing up, keys already in his hands.

“ _Now_?” Nancy says.

“We have to keep El safe!” Mike insists.

“Mulder, wait,” Scully says, and positions herself in front of the door. “It’s late. It’s midnight. It’s been a long day for _all_ of us and we can—we can talk to everyone in the morning, okay?”

“But—” Mulder and Mike say at the same time.

But one look from Nancy and Scully shuts them both up.

“We’ll have better luck in the morning,” Scully says. “Come on. Let’s get a room for the kids and then we’ll regroup then, okay?”

Mulder nods.

He hates when she’s right.


	4. Grand Conspiracy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Hello all,  
>  Thank you for taking the time to read/review this fic. I am currently on hiatus until February 2017 while I edit and update new chapters, but I wanted to give you a chance to catch up here. If you have suggestions for where the story should go next, please comment with them!**

**Thursday, November 10, 1983. 5:57 a.m.**

Mike is up early the next morning, shaking Nancy’s bed.

“Five minutes,” she groans, rolling over.

And then it hits her where she is, what’s happening, and she bolts upright, drab motel comforter pooling around her waist as she sits up.

“Mike, what _time_ is it?” she asks, staring at her younger brother, who’s looking at her with wide-eyed earnestness.

“Six. Come on. We’ve gotta go. We’ve gotta go help El.”

“Mike…”

“No, come _on_ ,” he insists, much like he had the night before. He throws the covers off her bed and ignores her when she shrieks, and for a second it’s like they’re both younger again, before she’d stopped wanting him around, before all the crazy shit happening, before everything.

Her little brother has always been sensitive, has always had this conviction he can save the world.

She wonders where he gets it from. Not their parents, surely, her drab dull father who only cares about when a game is on, her mother who just wants her children to be happy. No, Mike has always had something _different,_ some burning need to make sure everything is okay.

And when things go awry, more often than not it’s been Nancy who’s been there to clean up his mess.

She just wonders if she’ll be capable this time.

 

Mulder is already awake when the knock on the door comes. He opens it expecting to find Mike, ready to go, but instead there’s Scully, standing in front of him with a cup of coffee.

“Nancy knocked on my door,” she says by way of explanation. “They’re ready to go. I told them I’d come get you.”

“Perfect,” Mulder says, already shrugging on his coat

“Mulder, wait,” Scully says. She sits down on the edge of his still-made motel bed. “Did you sleep?”

“In the chair,” he says, shrugging. “I’m telling you it’s more comfortable than the bed.”

Truth is he didn’t sleep. He was up all night, poring over notes about Martin Brenner, about Hawkins Laboratory. About Will Byers.

Mike is right. He doesn’t think the kid is dead. Something doesn’t feel right about this case. And for Will to show up so suddenly, so perfectly, drowned in the reservoir?

No. Will Byers isn’t dead. Which may mean Barbara Holland isn’t, either.

He shakes his head, looks back up at Scully. She’s standing there in a wrinkled t-shirt and jeans, blazer thrown on over both, arms folded across her chest. Her red hair is still wet from what must have been an incredibly early shower.

“Mulder,” she says. “We need to focus. Barbara Holland is still missing. Now’s not—now isn’t the time for you to get caught up in some grand conspiracy.”

Her expression is flat. And he knows on some level she’s right, but on another level, it’s so possible that Barbara Holland is caught up in this conspiracy. That if he can solve this mess he can bring back Will, bring back Barbara…

And maybe, just maybe, Samantha has some connection to all this.

He still hasn’t told Scully much about his sister, just bits and pieces here and there, if she asks. And sometimes she asks, but sometimes it just feels like he’s talking to hear himself talk.

“Scully, something bigger is going on here than a missing girl.”

“I know that, but don’t… don’t lose sight of the missing girl while you’re trying to save the world, okay?” she says.

“That’s what I have you for,” he says, and shrugs his coat on, taking the coffee from the table.

And she follows him out the door and wonders what he would do without her.

**7:48 a.m.**

They drop Mike at the middle school, tell him they’ll pick him and El and the rest of them up later. They drop Nancy at her house, since she insists it’ll be safer if she shows her face to her mother before heading off to the high school. And then, Mulder drives them to Benny’s diner, insisting they get a burger.

They’re greeted with crime scene tape and door hanging off the hinges.

“What in the…” Scully says, brushing aside a piece of tape and carefully ducking under it. Mulder steps on the tape.

The diner is in disarray. Shambles.

“What happened here?” Mulder asks as they take in overturned tables and blood spatter on the wall.

Scully steps over a shattered plate, surveys the interior of the diner.

“More importantly,” she says. “Why did no one tell us about this?”

**3:42 p.m.**

Mulder meets up with Nancy and the kids at the school, sending Scully off to talk to the sheriff and find out more about the diner. He’s sitting on the hood of the car when Nancy walks up with the boys and a girl—El?

She doesn’t look like Samantha, and he finds a sudden wave of relief coursing through him at this.

Not that he thought she would.

He hops off the hood of the car, bends down so he’s at eye level with the kids. El shrinks back from him, and the boy with curly hair—Dustin—looks at the ground, but Mike and—Lucas, was it?—stare straight at Mulder.

He was so like these boys when he was young, when any adult came to question him about Samantha. Fear hiding under a layer of masculine bravado because no one told him otherwise.

“El helped us find Will,” Mike says, looking straight at Mulder. “She can talk to him.”

“Mike…” Nancy in the background, her voice gentle.

“No, she really can,” Dustin says. “With the radio.”

“The _radio_?”

“We tried it—”

“And it works—with the ham radio—”

“She knows where Will is—”

“I’m going,” Nancy announces loudly, and the boys stop talking. “This is… I don’t know. I’m going to go try to find Barb,” she says stubbornly, looking at Mulder with the same look she gave him last night.

He knows he should go with her, try to find her friend.

_Don’t lose sight of the missing girl._

But the boys and El are looking at him so earnestly.

He stands, rubs his hands over his hair.

“Let’s get your friend a radio.”


End file.
